The Centre’s high-level panel on exam reforms has advised against permanent staffing in the National Testing Agency (NTA), instead recommending longer tenure for executives and domain experts with attractive service conditions.

Under fire over alleged irregularities in the conduct of medical entrance exam NEET-UG and PhD entrance NET, the government set up the panel in July to study the functioning of the NTA.

The Opposition had claimed that NTA operates with fewer than 25 permanent employees and somehow it conducts over two dozen major exams, including the highly competitive NEET-UG.

In its report, the panel, headed by former ISRO chief R Radhakrishnan, has said, “It is prudent to avoid permanence while staffing NTA. Still continuity and institutional memory must be maintained by longer tenure of executives and domain experts drawn through central staffing schemes or from academic or specialised organisations.”

“To attract competent and willing persons to relocate to NTA, attractive service conditions may be devised (special pay/higher grade on deputation, performance-related incentives or schemes, waiver of age limit),” it added.

The seven-member panel has noted that the NTA needs to be manned by internal domain-specific human resources and a leadership team with domain knowledge, proven experience and skill sets who should take charge of the testing process in future.

Suggesting a restructuring of the NTA, the committee noted that the agency should have an “empowered and accountable” governing body with three designated sub-committees to oversee test audit, ethics and transparency; nomination and staff conditions; and stakeholder relationships.

The panel has recommended 10 specific verticals, each by a director level. The verticals will be related to technology, products and operations, test security and surveillance.

Laying down a roadmap for testing centres, the panel suggested that it was possible to integrate such testing centres from Kendriya Vidyalyas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, reputable universities and institutes to establish a nationwide network of about 400-500 testing centres within a time frame of a year or so, which would provide about 2-2.5 lakh testing capacity for conducting CBT (Computer-based test) in one session nationwide.

It recommended that the NTA could target developing at least 1,000 secure standard testing centres in a phased manner in reputable government institutions.

This process may require a “war-footing” approach, it noted.

“The committee envisions a testing centre allocation policy to ensure that ideally the candidates should get a choice of testing centre in their district of residence,” it said.

The NTA’s role came under the scanner when medical entrance exam NEET became a centre of controversy over irregularities, including alleged leaks. The UGC-NET was cancelled as the ministry received inputs that the integrity of the exam had been compromised. Both matters are being probed by the CBI.

Two other exams — CSIR-UGC NET and NEET PG — were cancelled at the last moment as a preemptive step.

The panel also includes former AIIMS Delhi director Randeep Guleria, Central University of Hyderabad vice-chancellor B J Rao, professor emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras K Ramamurthy, People Strong co-founder and Karmayogi Bharat board member Pankaj Bansal, IIT Delhi dean of student affairs Aditya Mittal and MoE joint secretary Govind Jaiswal.

The committee was also tasked with examining the existing security protocols related to the setting of the papers and other processes for various examinations and making recommendations to enhance the robustness of the system.

The panel also had two IIT Kanpur academicians as members — Amey Karkare, professor of computer science and engineering and Debapriya Roy, assistant professor.

Also read:

97,000 Mumbai University students affected by missing documents